Hitachi Eyes World’s Fastest Lift In China

Hitachi has plans to work on what they deem to be the ‘world’s fastest’ lift in China, where it is touted to be able to hit floor 95 right from the bottom in a mere 43 seconds. Now that’s super fast, and I would like to think that the amount of time you would spend waiting for the lift to stop at your floor in a high density building would be a whole lot more than your travel time, vertically speaking of course.

According to Hitachi, they will go about installing a lift that can hit speeds of 72km/h (45mph) into a skyscraper that is located in Guangzhou, southern China. This particular skyscraper is widely tipped to be ready by the time 2016 rolls around, but do bear in mind that this is but an estimate. It would be interesting to see whether this skyscraper will end up as a tourist spot of sorts eventually, for those who want the experience of riding in the world’s fastest lift. No idea on whether there will be other lifts in the world that will be faster between now and the skyscraper’s completion though.

At the moment, the Taipei 101 building in Taiwan happens to be the record holder for the fastest lift, hitting a top speed of 60.6km/h. Hitachi is confident that their new lift will be able to offer a “comfortable ride” even at such high speeds, and you will not experience ear blockages due to the change in pressure since Hitachi intends to artificially alter air pressure within the car itself as it goes up, up and away.